Anna Larsson

The Swedish-born contralto Anna Larsson completed her vocal training in Stockholm in 1996. A year later she was already making debuts as soloist in Mahler’s Second Symphony with the Berlin Philharmonic under Claudio Abbado and as Erda in Wagner’s Rheingold with the Berlin State Opera.

Anna Larsson has since been heard as Erda in Berlin, Vienna, Munich, Salzburg, Aix-en-Provence, Milan, and Stockholm. Her repertoire of Wagner roles further includes Waltraute (Götterdämmerung) and Fricka (Rheingold, Die Walküre), as well as Dalila in Saint-Saëns’ Samson et Dalila and Gaea in Daphne by Richard Strauss; in January of this year she sang her first Kundry in Wagner’s Parsifal. She is regularly heard at the Bavarian State Opera, the Vienna State Opera, at the Théâtre de la Monnaie in Brussels, and the Royal Opera in Stockholm. She made her Salzburg Festival debut in 2000 in Wolfgang Rihm’s In doppelter Tiefe.

As an interpreter of the alto parts in Gustav Mahler’s symphonies Anna Larsson has appeared worldwide, performing with the Berlin Philharmonic, Lucerne Festival Orchestra, Vienna Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, London Symphony Orchestra, and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. In addition she sings all of the major concert repertoire for her vocal range, from Monteverdi to contemporary composers, with conductors such as Claudio Abbado, Zubin Mehta, Sir Simon Rattle, Gustavo Dudamel, Kurt Masur, Lorin Maazel, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Esa-Pekka Salonen, and Antonio Pappano.

She is dedicated as well to the recital stage, regularly touring with songs from the German, English, and Scandinavian literatures at London’s Wigmore Hall, the Brahmssaal of the Vienna Musikverein and at the major festivals. In December 2010 Anna Larsson was appointed Singer to the Royal Court by Sweden’s King Carl XVI Gustaf.